Everyday Ignatian is a series written by guest contributors, chronicling their daily lives and experiences through the lens of Ignatian spirituality. This year, we’re excited to introduce a special theme for 2025: Virtues, or Gifts of the Spirit. Featuring writers Alli Bobzien, Catherine Sullivan and Jennifer Sawyer, along with select guest authors, Everyday Ignatian will highlight stories that explore the quarterly themes of prudence, patience, solidarity, and gratitude — and the impact they have on our lives today.
My 2-year-old daughter is currently obsessed with the nursery rhyme “Five Little Ducks.” The requests to listen to this little ditty come fast and often — when she’s eating her morning yogurt, on the drive to daycare, in the middle of a block-building session when she suddenly realizes she’s gone more than five minutes without her favorite tune — and once the song concludes comes the inevitable appeal, “Again, Mama! Again!”
For those unfamiliar, or unwilling to subject themselves to the latest toddler earworm, “Five Little Ducks” is about some ducklings that go out to play and disappear one by one, over a series of days, until zero ducks remain. On the final day, a sad, desperate mother duck quacks in despondence over the loss of her family, until — surprise! All of the ducklings return. While it’s not as grave as the dark themes of other nursery rhymes, it still fills my mind with annoying questions. Where did the ducklings go? What were they doing for days on their own? How could mother duck just… lose her kids?
I’m quite certain that I’m not the only parent who’s wanted to stuff my ears full of cotton balls at the first sign of the nursery rhyme-spiral (the ducks’ YouTube video alone has a staggering 1.8 billion views!). So many aspects of parenting small children require colossal amounts of patience, but I often find navigating the constant repetition of songs, requests and actions to be particularly challenging. So, whenever the duck symphony begins, I try to remind myself about the value of repetition.
Parenting articles and newsletters emphasize the fascinating ways repetition is quite literally building my toddler’s brain. Researchers credit repetition with building neural circuits, fostering language development, and understanding cause and effect. So while I can easily become annoyed by the lack of variety in everything from food choices to the preferred stuffie, I’m comforted knowing my toddler’s dedication to her “one favorite thing” is mysteriously helping her learn about how the world works.
Gaining a better understanding of how repetition helps my daughter grow has encouraged me to become more patient with her repeated requests. It’s also invited me to reflect on the value of repetition in my own life. Recently, I came to a major realization: Just as repetition acts as a building block for my toddler’s brain, it also serves as the building block to my spiritual life.
Similarly to my daughter’s desire to watch, read and play the same things over and over, our faith insists on repetition — from liturgical celebrations to the passing of Catholic traditions across generations — as a pathway to spiritual growth. What stands out to me the most are the prayers — the Our Father, Hail Mary, the Rosary — that I have recited by memory since I was a young child, as well as all the deeply important rituals that connect me with a community of Catholics across the world.
In the past, I’ve been grateful for memorized prayers that help me move deeper into contemplation when words come up short. It’s comforting to have reliable prayers to turn to, particularly when I’m feeling stressed, overwhelmed or exhausted. Whether I’m reciting them out loud at Mass, or in my head before falling asleep, the Our Father, Hail Mary and others offer a familiar gateway into a prayerful state where I can talk with God.
My desire to regularly turn to the most familiar petitions has only become stronger since I became a mother. In this season of my life, I’m recognizing God’s invitation to help my children get to know our faith. In that spirit, my husband and I have begun to pray these prayers with my daughter at bedtime. God willing, she’ll eventually learn them and be able to turn to them for spiritual comfort and reflection. I know it will take some time (so far, she’s really mastered the enthusiastic “Amen!” when we’re finished), but seeing her sweet and clumsy attempts at copying the sign of the cross ignites my heart with gratitude and gives me hope for what might become the building blocks of her own faith life.
Praying the core prayers of our Catholic faith with my toddler has given me a greater patience for repetition and appreciation of its fruits. Just like my daughter’s favorite melody, repeated prayer is an instrument to see and understand how God is working in the life of my family. If my daughter can find newness and excitement at the 400th listen of her favorite song, then who knows what discoveries await her as she learns, grows and moves forward, hopefully, in prayer.
